Bruce would already be checking out the most obvious possibilities. An ECG would confirm or rule out a heart problem, while a quick test of the woman’s blood-sugar level would indicate whether this was a diabetic coma.
After a few minutes, Bruce called to her again. ‘It looks like a stroke.’
‘You’re sure?’ Hayley asked. She continued to irrigate Tori’s burned skin.
‘The ECG isn’t right for a heart problem. Her blood sugar’s normal. But she’s still unconscious, just lying here on the couch. That suggests CVA rather than TIA.’
‘Yes, it does.’
She recognised the abbreviations. Cerebral vascular accident and transient ischaemic attack. The latter was sometimes called a mini-stroke, and rapid, complete recovery from this condition was much more common than from a CVA. The blocked blood vessel or leaking blood involved in the more serious event usually caused at least some permanent brain damage.
‘I’ve checked her responses,’ Bruce went on. ‘She’s reacting to pain and light. I’ve covered her and put her on her side, secured her airway. I’m going to keep talking to her, trying to get a response. How’s your little heroine? Hayley, I don’t want to leave until that second car gets here.’
‘No, obviously not,’ Hayley agreed, ‘but it’s difficult. She needs more than what I’m doing now, judging by her skin and her breathing.’
Tori looked clammy and pale, in contrast to her dark hair, and her breathing was too fast and too shallow. Her pulse was thready and rapid as well.
‘Has she said anything?’
‘She managed to tell me her daddy works at the hospital, didn’t you, darling?’
‘I wonder if he’s there now,’ Bruce said. ‘We’ve no idea who he is?’
‘No, but... Well, look at this fabulous house.’
‘Yeah,’ the older man agreed. ‘There are more great views from this room. It limits the options. He’s not the janitor. Doctor? Health Service Manager? I know him, and his kids aren’t this age.’
Hayley was pulling sterile gauze pads from an equipment kit as they batted these questions around. Tori had paled further and was silent now, no longer in tears. Suddenly, her shoulders and stomach heaved, and she leaned forward and vomited.
Hayley took it in her stride, soothing the little girl, holding her shoulders more firmly as two more heaves came and rinsing the mess quickly down the sink when it was done. She gave Tori a glass of water, and the child spat out two or three mouthfuls then drank thirstily. Hayley turned off the sink sprayer and draped the soaked pieces of gauze over the area of the burn.
It was already beginning to blister, suggesting a partial thickness burn. Fortunately, the red area stopped a few centimetres below Tori’s navel and her genital region had been spared.
‘I’m going to get her settled in the ambulance,’ she called to Bruce. ‘When the others get here, we’ll split crews, and Jim can drive me while Paul stays with you.’
She left the front door open and carried Tori to the ambulance, hoping the second car would get there soon. Tori looked tiny on the stretcher in the back of the car. Hayley covered her with a blanket at once. Next she inserted a drip, containing morphine for pain, and was alarmed rather than reassured by Tori’s lack of fight when the sharp prick came. OK, yes, she’d found a nice vein in the back of the child’s hand and the needle had gone in straight away, but she would have expected more of a protest.
She picked up the radio and spoke to the dispatcher. ‘Kathy, is there a second car on its way?’
‘Yes, Car Seven. Car Eleven just called in with a report on their status. It should be with you in a couple of minutes.’
‘OK, thanks.’ She turned back to Tori. ‘What does Daddy do at the hospital, darling?’ she asked. It would help if she could keep Tori alert and reassured.
‘He’s Dr Black,’ came a weak little voice. ‘He makes people better.’
‘Dr Black?’ Hayley echoed. She went cold.
Dear God, it had to be Byron! This was Byron Black’s daughter...
In the distance, the siren of the second car could faintly be heard. Meanwhile, Hayley’s mind raced. She’d seen him, what, twice, in sixteen years? They’d trained together in Arden’s competitive amateur swimming club in their teens. Most people had called him B.J. then, but they probably didn’t any more. She hadn’t used the nickname herself, even back then. She hadn’t felt that it suited him.
He was three years older than she was, but they’d both been backstroke specialists, tackling the sprint distances. This had meant a lot of cheering for each other, a lot of powering alongside each other in the pool and the growth of a friendship. They’d both been keen and competitive, thriving on the atmosphere, and they’d made it to the state championships twice.
Once, they’d even kissed. Lord, she hadn’t relived that delicious memory in years...
Then, when Hayley had been fifteen, Byron had gone off to Sydney to study medicine at Sydney University, and it had seemed as if he’d made a permanent life for himself in the city. He’d been openly competitive in the pool, and he was obviously ambitious about his career. He didn’t come from a professional background. His father worked in a local hardware store, and Byron had had to work hard towards each new goal. In hindsight, she had the impression that he gloried in a challenge, and she couldn’t think of any goal he’d set and failed to meet.
Hayley had run into him once on the beach around Christmas-time about seven years previously, in the company of a pretty, dark-haired woman. ‘This is my wife, Elizabeth,’ he’d said. She had introduced him to Chris that day, and the four of them had talked for a short while.
A couple of years later, they’d bumped into each other in the supermarket and had exchanged two minutes of superficial news. She’d heard a couple of things since. That Elizabeth had died in a plane accident of some kind. That they’d had a little girl.
Tori.
The sirens grew louder and the lower tone of the vehicle’s engine joined the noise as it grew closer. Then the sounds of sirens and engine both died. The second ambulance was here, parked in the street below.
Climbing out the back of her car, Hayley directed Paul Cotter up to the house. ‘Bruce is in the living room with the other patient. First door on the right,’ she told Jim Sheldon. ‘You’re driving this car. Let’s go.’
‘Righto, Hayley.’ Paul hurried up the steps, his black trouser legs a blur, to disappear inside and find Bruce.
Hayley climbed back into the car to Tori.
‘We’re going now,’ she said, gently peeling back the blanket and replacing the gauze, warmed from Tori’s over-heated skin, with freshly soaked pieces. ‘We’re going to see Daddy at the hospital.’
‘Daddy...’ said a tiny voice.
A few weeks ago, Hayley had found out that Byron was coming back to Arden with his little daughter to oversee the accident and emergency department
